WFP is scaling up to deliver lifesaving food assistance to reach 450,000 people affected by the country’s worst flooding in decades – just months after Mozambicans recovered from the worst drought in its recent history.
Mozambique is facing overlapping food-security shocks from conflict, repeated climate disasters, high food prices, and deep poverty.
Senior United Nations humanitarian officials are appealing for urgent global action to address a trio of crises – conflict, climate shocks and a deteriorating socio-economic situation – confronting Mozambique.
Cyclone Batsirai made landfall in Madagascar on Saturday evening with wind gusts of 146 mph. At least six people are confirmed dead and nearly 50,000 are displaced.
WFP warns that without urgent funding, one of the world’s fastest-growing displacement crises in northern Mozambique risks becoming a hunger emergency.
People have scattered in many different directions since the recent attacks in Palma, Cabo Delgado Province. They’ve had to flee leaving behind all their belongings and families have been separated.
WFP is working around the clock to assist people in need following the latest outbreak of violence in northern Mozambique and aims to reach up to 50,000 people affected by the attacks.
More than 668,000 people, mainly women and children, were forced to flee their homes without any belongings due to the ongoing crisis. Without the humanitarian community, these people would not be able to meet their basic needs.
In the weeks after the strongest storm to ever hit the country, WFP’s emergency assistance kick-started the recovery of 1.8 million people. But many others, who are still struggling today, face a bleak and uncertain future.
The storm hit Mozambique at one of the worst possible times: January to March is the peak lean season – when people struggle the most to find food.
